RS

FRONT PAGE CONTRIBUTOR

Mike Pence and Asa Hutchinson are out of step with America.

As Indiana Governor Mike Pence and Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson flail about trying to accommodate the insatiable demands of the homosexual left, Dave Weigel, reporting at Bloomberg Politics, has some bad new for them. They are out of step with most of America.

In doing so, all of the critics are on the wrong side of public polling. According to a March edition of the Marist poll, 54 percent of Americans agreed with “allowing First Amendment religious liberty protection or exemptions for faith based organizations and individuals even when it conflicts with government laws.” By a two-point margin, 47-45, even a plurality of Democratic voters agreed with that.

The margins were even larger in opposition to laws that proposed “penalties or fines for individuals who refuse to provide wedding-related services to same sex couples even if their refusal is based on their religious beliefs.” No Democrat is seriously proposing this; the nearest cultural analogue may be the story of Memories Pizza, the Indiana shop whose owner said that he would decline to provide pies to gay weddings, and saw its Yelp! page firebombed with angry comments. (The popularity of delivery pizza at gay wedding ceremonials is well known.) Still, according to Marist, Americans oppose penalties on businesses like Memories by a 65-31 margin. The margin among Democrats: 62-34 against.

The argument against the various RFRA laws is so dishonest that it would be laughable were these people not dead serious in their jihad to criminalize freedom of thought and freedom of religion. Most Americans see through this smoke screen of “equality” and recognize what is going on. That Pence and Hutchinson could not and choose obeisance to corporatist interests is a shame.